Thomas Hertel says German authorities would be crazy to release Madeleine McCann suspect Christian Brueckner, who is nearing the end of a seven-year jail term and could be free in months
Madeleine McCann: Christian Brueckner’s former flatmate says he’s a ‘ticking time bomb’
A former flatmate of Madeleine McCann suspect Christian Brueckner says he is a “ticking time bomb” and should not be released from prison. Thomas Hertel was in the same German children’s home as the convicted paedophile when they were teenagers in the 1990s.
He said Brueckner, who is suspected of snatching and killing Madeleine in the Portuguese resort of Praia da Luz in 2007, made his life hell. Thomas told how Brueckner attacked him with a bottle, terrorised staff at the home in Wurzburg and regularly stole from other teens. The 51-year-old was left “speechless” when he heard his former housemate was the prime suspect in Madeleine’s disappearance.
Thomas said he believes Brueckner was capable of committing the crime – and he remains scared of him to this day. The German is due to be freed from prison next February when his seven-year term for raping a pensioner in Praia da Luz ends.
Thomas said: “He’s a ticking time bomb, a danger. He shouldn’t be let out, that would be my wish.” The pair both lived in a flat-sharing community, run by a German evangelical welfare charity, between 1992 and 1995.
Brueckner moved there after leaving his foster family amid allegations of ill-treatment and beatings. Thomas said his flatmate had “two sides” to his personality and would “flip out” without warning.
“One side was kind and nice, you could talk to him,” he said. “But when he flipped out, he flipped out. That was when you saw the other side. When something got under his skin, he was so aggressive and unpredictable. You couldn’t hold him back.
“I mean, I lash out sometimes. But I was never like Christian. He did a lot of nonsense. He thieved things, he burgled, he broke into places. And if you said something to him, he flipped out.
“He was the king in that place and he would not let himself be told anything – he had the most cigarettes and money.” Thomas told how Brueckner once brutally attacked him with a glass bottle after “flipping out” at dinner.
“We were all sitting at the dinner table, having dinner, and then Christian came in,” he said. “And because there was nothing left to eat, he got aggressive. He took a bottle of water and threw it at me. The bottle shattered and a splinter went into my eye. I had to go to the eye clinic to have it removed.”
Thomas said he “trembled” whenever Brueckner was in the home, which has since closed down. “I was afraid of going there in the evening, wondering what would happen next,” he said.
“He hoarded all the food. He took everything from the room. We were left with nothing. We went shopping once a week and it had to last, and he hoarded everything. It was as if he wanted all the power, the whole residential group under his control, under his thumb. He wanted everything for himself.”
Brueckner’s reputation was so bad at the home he was banned from overseas trips the teens often went on. Thomas was stunned when he saw his former housemate on TV after he was named as a suspect in Madeleine’s disappearance.
“At the time, I was speechless,” he said. “I was horrified, I couldn’t believe it. I said, ‘What, a murderer? A rapist? I still can’t understand it today.”
Asked if he thinks Brueckner is capable of such a crime, he replied: “When you hear everything, I suspect so. I think he’s actually capable of anything.”
He added: “I’m afraid that if he’s freed, he’ll come back to Wurzburg. He’s a ticking time bomb, a danger. He shouldn’t be let out, that would be my wish.”
Renate Tschugg, who lived next door to the children’s home, remembered Brueckner as being a “strange boy”. She said: “He always wore dark clothes, he set himself apart from the others a bit, in terms of his appearance, his whole manner. He was strange. I didn’t get on with the boy. I couldn’t connect with him at all.”
Asked if she thinks he could have snatched Madeleine, she said: “I never thought that before. You never know how children, teenagers, will develop. But I never would have believed it back then. But now? Well…”
Brueckner was living in an isolated farmhouse in Praia da Luz when Madeleine vanished from her parents’ holiday apartment. But despite the lengthy police investigation, detectives appear to be no closer to charging him with her disappearance.
He was cleared last October of a string of sex crimes he was accused of carrying out in Portugal. Prosecutors are awaiting the outcome of an appeal against those verdicts lodged in Germany’s Federal Court of Justice. Brueckner denies any involvement in Madeleine’s disappearance.
He chillingly smirked when asked by The Mirror earlier this week if he knew what happened to the missing youngster. We confronted him outside court after he was convicted of insulting guards at the prison where he is serving a seven-year rape sentence.
Pale-faced Brueckner stared straight ahead and smirked as we asked: “Did you know what happened to Madeleine McCann?” He was hauled before judges in Germany after branding jail staff “a laughing stock” in a shock rant.
He snapped at guards in Sehnde prison during a meeting to discuss whether he could be moved from solitary confinement. Brueckner moaned he was being “tortured” and treated “inhumanely” during the March 2024 outburst.
A female guard told the court Brueckner was “enraged” and told her to “shut your gob” before the meeting was halted. Under German law it is illegal to insult prison officials.
Brueckner later penned an apology letter to the guards, saying he “woke up on the wrong side of the bed”. He was handed a one-month suspended sentence last Thursday and told to pay court costs.
If he commits another crime after being released, he will be recalled to prison for four weeks. The earliest date he can be released from Sehnde prison is September. But his lawyers said a more realistic date, due to his inability to pay fines he still owes, is next February.